Realm
by Genine
Summary: The curtain opens. Speakeasy music fades in then out. Roger, wearing his usual suit and sunglasses, sitting in a booth, facing towards audience.
1. Speakeasy

Realm

By Genine Silverio and Emerson Bradley (Best friends 3)

**SETTING: The speakeasy.**

_The curtain opens. Speakeasy music fades in then out. Roger, wearing his usual suit and sunglasses, sitting in a booth, facing towards audience. Next to him on the table is a tall glass bottle of absinthe and a reservoir glass with traces of the potent liquid. Her heels echo in the room. Enter Angel, who sits in the empty booth seat across from his. She wears a dangerous black satin minidress, the one with purple ribbon and the plunging neckline. The dress would make any man immediately lose self-control and lust for voluptuous thighs, and, yet, Roger doesn't even flinch and continues staring in the audience's direction, deep in thought._

Angel: (In a voice like honey laced with poison) How's it going?

Roger: (coldly) More or less damaged,yet persisting. How goes it, stranger?

Angel: I'm in the need of-

Roger: Me 's amazing,isn't it?

Angel: (curious) What is?

Roger: The fact that in reality everyone is dead.

Angel: (sarcastically) It makes me pretty damn hungry.

Roger:Tell me about it.

Angel: When are we going home?

Roger: We're already there.

Angel: Right.

Roger: (a sudden burst of anger interrupts his cold exterior. He slams his hand down on the table, shaking the glass of absinthe) Damn!

Angel: (turns to face Roger in a kind of caring way, and puts her hand on top of his) What is it?

Roger: (for the first time his focus switches from the audience to her) Why is there so few people breathing?

Angel: (searching his eyes, saying the next line softly) Why are you here?

Roger: (for the first time in this scene, his lighter mood shows. He clasps his hand with Angel's) Good call. Wanna get married?

Angel: (a curl of her lips, a playful smile as she rolls her eyes but soon again she searches into Roger's eyes) Not now. I'm feeling pretty sick… Hey,may I ask you something? (her voice trails off)

Roger: Hell no.

Angel: (sighing softly) Do you think I'm crazy? (she releases her hand from Rogers and reaches for Roger's glass and fills it with absinthe)

Roger: This some kind of joke?Well,believe it or not,you are among the few coherent minds.

Angel: (sips the absinthe coolly and with calculation) Kill me.

Roger: Do it yourself.

Angel: No thanks,I'm full.

Roger: My life is like an RPG…

Angel: What level are you at?

Roger: (reaches for his glass and fills it with absinthe) Kill yourself.

Angel: Who the fuck are you,anyways?

Roger: (sips) I would like for you to tell me who YOU are.

Angel: I'd love to.. But then afterwards, I'd have to kill you…

Roger: And to think these echoes represent madness to the masses.

Angel: (slips off from the booth seat and stands up, acts like a damsel in distress, putting her hands to her forehead and pretending to faint) "Oh no! How am I supposed to interpret this? He's crazy!" (Gaining her regular composure, she turns towards him and pokes him in the chest with a wink) ...just like that,huh?

Roger: Usually. By the way,I ain't forgetting.

Angel: Forgetting… what? (reaches for the bluebell flower which is a vase on the table)

Roger: About the pizza you said you'd force feed me.

Angel: (peeling the petals of one of the many blooms) I'm crazy.I'm not crazy.I'm crazy.I'm not crazy…. (slips into his lap and stares into his eyes) I'm not crazy.

**A FEW SECONDS OF A VERY TANGIBLE, VERY THICK SILENCE. Angel releases eye contact, sighs, and inserts the bluebell into the front pocket of his suit on his chest.**

Roger: Damn, how many petals does that flower have.

Angel: No petals,just my hands. (looking back at his eyes again)

Roger: Good luck,then… I don't care. (he says the last three words in a very cold manner. Or, at least, it only appears to be.)

Angel: (her eyes avert away, her voice has an undertone of hurt.) Nothing even perceived,just reacted to out of ignorance. (She tries to get up and away from Roger's lap but Roger prevents her from doing so.)

Roger: Calm down...I don't know just what the hell you're problem is,but you need to get a grip.(she may not be looking at him, but his eyes are fixated upon her, upon every facet of her at this moment)

Angel: (her eyes are still averted to the distance. She is not very comforted by those words but the fact that he tells her to get a grip makes her assume that he thinks she's crazy) Nice one...

Roger: Of course,but seriously,when are you going to lose the truth and join the rest of the crowd?

Angel: (her voice quivers yet she tries to say this boldly even she knows this is a lie) I them,I feel more isolated than when I am alone.

Roger: (gently touches her face and she turns and her face is close to his. He looks at her lips, controlled by his infatuation of her, and wonders. Their faces are so close to touching.) You're pretty desperate,aren't you?

Angel: (answers quickly, nervously) Never.

Roger: It's eating you alive.

Angel: It takes a living being to eat,after all.

Roger: Negativity...why are you so?

Angel: (muttering to herself) Ask him. It's not like documenting this is going to make things-

Roger: (interrupts her sentence with a deep passionate kiss. Both are equally surprised and feel more alive they have ever been. They withdraw from the kiss and stare at each others eyes, reading each other's souls) Me either… Good night.

Angel: (puts her head on his chest) Good night…

_Curtain falls. A piano rendition of the Big O Ending theme fades out._

**WE HAVE COME TO TERMS.**

Creator's Note: In many ways this story makes me want to puke. Wow! A happy ending!

In many ways as well it makes me want to go 'awww' and eat chocolate.


	2. Before the Reset

Realm, Part Two

A strange collaboration between Emerson Bradley and Genine Silverio… He wrote me the dialogue and me over here in boring old Pearland writes the context, while adding dramatic lines and scenes from the Big O series! Though I did change a lot of things in the story! LOL!

**SETTING, before the RESET. In cockpit of BIG VENUS. ANGEL is in the pilot's chair, ROGER is leaning against the wall of the room, arms folded, staring off into the distance. Two of Roger's fingers are pressed against his forehead; he appears to be having a bad day- an understatement, at least, for anyone and everyone in Paradigm City.**

ANGEL stares at the main screen, her deep eyes elucidating some sort of blank expression, it seems. On the screen is a word processing software. She is editing the script of METROPOLIS. The rules and guidelines of Paradigm City's Existence as well as its citizens are within the fulfilling script. She is mainly focusing on one sentence out of all the paragraphs of the fateful tome, a sentence comprised of three words. There is however no punctuation at the end of the sentence; there is only a blinking insertion point, waiting for the conclusion, for the final approval of the DIRECTOR. But what conclusion?

There are many other television screens on the wall in front of her. They simultaneously display various scenes of BIG O SEASON 1, though not in any chronological order.

ANGEL: (Her eyes not moving away from the screen) It's truly a descriptive self. You didn't want to change anything at all; in fact, your new existence may as well be your past one. Are you sure you want to be the same way as you are now, in the future?

ROGER: (Eyes closed) Shut up. I've been here for 25 years. And who knows how long the Universe has been resetting.

ANGEL: Well, would you like children? Little Roger Smiths running around? That'd be a sight. I'd laugh. Madness! Do you want some notion of continuance, your little own personal creations and investments in the future? I could write anything in life that you want, anything at all. After all, I am the writer of your own destiny. I am your Creator.

ROGER: I'm not that hungry. The only thing I want is the One.

ANGEL: (assumes that she is the One… raises eyebrow and smiles) Again? Give me a cigar, please.

ROGER: (Removes a smoke out of his pocket and tosses a smoke to her. His eyes flicker open, but he stares at the wall opposite from him, not anywhere near Angel's direction) Kill me.

ANGEL: (Lights the carcinogen and places it to her lips, then exhales, the fume dispersing in the room, the gas first visible then transparent) Better yet, let's kill _ourselves_.

ROGER: Fool! You still think that's possible?

ANGEL: Why not? Anything is possible. I even just smiled, just a few minutes ago.

ROGER: Liar. So when?

**(ANGEL presses a key and on the main screen the scene with VERA, her mother, and ANGEL during her childhood begins to play. ANGEL had always imagined the scene in her mind, yet watching it on a television screen as a third person makes the memory a more real experience. ANGEL trembles, makes an inward sigh, and cranes her neck forward at the screen, deeply focused. Throughout the memory, ROGER still stares at the wall, stoic and unmoved.)**

VERA: _You know, these marks on your back are special. They're the sign that you're the reincarnation of a little… angel. I know that you'll live a very happy life and I want you to believe that, alright?__A bird whose wings have been plucked will shed all its feathers, and turn into the beast it was before it evolved into a bird._

ANGEL: (eyes watering and trembling, she is on the verge of tears but the tears don't come out… yet) When… is truly the endless transfiguration? (her voice shows not just sadness, but traces of extreme anger)

**(The memory on the screen seems to skip like a scratched DVD, pixilated, then arrives at a certain scene. At the sound of his own voice in the memory ROGER stirs, then walks next to ANGEL, turns to stare at the screen. ANGEL is surprised that ROGER had finally moved, and showed emotion. Instead of staring at the screen during the memory, she stares at ROGER, reading his facial expression… Tears stream down her face like a waterfall when she learns the Truth… It is the scene where Dorothy's android body had shut down, and she was lying on a table like a human corpse at a funeral, and ROGER confessed his feelings to her. )**

_ROGER: Dorothy, since you first came to live here, I feel like I've known you forever… You know, I never had answered that question that you asked me a while ago, did I…. You had asked, if you were human instead of an android, would you and I have fallen in love? If things have been different like you said, then maybe we would have… That's my answer to you… And please don't tell me that I'm dodging the issue…. Right now I can't seem to commit to one Truth, but I know I won't waiver in doing what needs to be done or going down the Path that I have to take… Wait for me…._

**(The memory stops playing when the screen freezes to a close-up of Dorothy's lifeless face.)**

ROGER: (With emotion) It isn't so bad, living, when you are with someone… (His hand caresses against the television screen as he remembers DOROTHY. ANGEL watches, still crying.)

ANGEL: (softly) Quite the truth… Humans. What fallacies.

ROGER: When may I cry?

ANGEL: (full of emotion and tears, raises voice) Isn't it obvious?

ROGER: What is, Angel?

ANGEL: (in all seriousness) That I lov- (She trails off, quiets, pausing. Her eyes show a variety of emotions, love, hurt, then acceptance. Realizing the Truth, her eyes change expression. She then chuckles out loud, coming to terms, trying to find humor in a bleak situation, and yet the laugh is made full-heartedly) You and your delusions with that android…

ROGER: Multiples have perished looking for her… (still caressing the screen, reflecting)

ANGEL: She is who you truly want, isn't she. (It is said like a statement, not a question. ANGEL has one last smoke, then crushes the cigarette butt and disposes it. She then, trembling, moves her hand to a big red button on the control pad, but inches before it her hand stops. She is still crying. )

ROGER: (removes his hand from the screen, stares at it as the screen changes from DOROTHY to the METROPOLIS document script. He then turns his gaze to ANGEL) Absolutely.

(ANGEL removes her edit from METROPOLIS. She removes her name from METROPOLIS and replaces it with the android's so now the sentence on the page reads 'Roger Loves Dorothy.' She then presses 'SAVE.')

ROGER:(in a caring tone, softly) My true affections lie with DOROTHY, but, Angel- I know that I will NEVER lose the you that is now a part of my memories... the you that met me, and the conviction you had in what you felt you needed to do! The you that loved yourself more than anyone else ever could. I'll never forget this woman named Angel, who loved herself, yet was filled with such doubt. (he bends down to kiss her on the cheek. ANGEL closes her eyes briefly, then opens them again and views ROGER's face, then at the screen)

ROGER: Y'know, it wasn't so bad… (he gently grabs her hand and places it on the red button) If you want, we can do it… together… (they both stare at the screen)

ANGEL: (the main screen flickers to a memory of ROGER and DOROTHY having a conversation, then zooms in to ROGER's face. In the memory, ROGER looks very much in love with DOROTHY. ANGEL's eyes narrow in further acceptance and she smiles sorrowfully but contentedly because loved him enough that she was willing to let him go for his own sake)You're right. It really isn't so bad… (a teardrop from her eye pools on her chin and lands on the cuff of ROGER's sleeve)

ROGER: After all…

(ROGER and ANGEL press the button. BIG VENUS spreading the color inversion throughout the gradient, the entire planet. The entire world disappears, implodes upon its very self, with a bright flash of humbling white light.)

(CUE START OF BIG O EPISODE 1)

WE HAVE COME TO TERMS


End file.
